


Long Time No See

by PushPin



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-23
Updated: 2013-02-23
Packaged: 2017-12-03 07:32:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/695794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PushPin/pseuds/PushPin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While Dirk's waiting to hear from Jake again dream bubble shenanigans rear their ugly head and he gets to meet a troll he otherwise never would have known.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Long Time No See

The first time you saw him you weren't expecting dream bubble shenanigans to rear their ugly head. There was no way to reliably expect them and hard not to be caught by surprise. You were indisposed with Jake in the moment that the shenanigans started, he was crushing you into a wall and hogging all of your attention when the bubble started passing through. It was such a subtle change neither of you noticed immediately.

You caught a glimpse over Jake's shoulder and it made you do a double take, having trouble identifying the new foliage as a brain tree. Jake didn't notice you freezing at the sight of the black and yellow clad alien standing just underneath it. The whole scene was out of some technicolor nightmare, red, blue, and yellow all over. The creature you could identify as a troll had a helmet that covered most of his face and long jutting fangs in his mouth.

From what you'd seen so far not all of the dream bubble visitors could be friendly, and Jake had his back to one of them right now. You gripped at his shirt, getting ready to toss him aside in case the ghost decided to charge you both.

Instead of an attack, like you were prepared for, a crooked grin spread over jagged sharp teeth just before a chorus of fumbling laughter erupted. It was finally enough to snap Jake out of his sloppy work on your neck, he looked up to you first as if he thought you were the one laughing. The alien doubled over clutching his stomach with laughter and bumped against the brain tree with a squelch. Jake twisted to find the source of the laughter, scratching his head.

“What's he on about?” he frowned slightly, the same slightly confused expression he made many times in a day.

“No idea.” you stood next to Jake, taking a weapon out of your sylladex in case there was still going to be a fight.

The troll managed to get a hold of himself with a few coughing inhalations, righting himself but stumbling and having to adjust his helmet before speaking finally.

If you were being honest you couldn't understand any of the words coming out of his mouth, not even a little. Whatever he just said seemed to make perfect sense to him, but you weren't even sure it was English. To you it just sounded like various slurred consonants strung together with random vowel sounds thrown in. His tone indicated that he was making a joke or something, but that was only your best guess.

“You did interrupt, so if you wouldn't mind.” Jake surprised you by dignifying the nonsense with a response and a shake of one hand in the alien's general direction.

“Oh, thorry.” the alien's expression suddenly fell, his twiggy shoulders sagging in his weird little one piece while his arms hung at his sides. 

Before you could say anything else he turned and shuffled his way around to the other side of the tree and out of your sight. The brain tree fizzled away with the dream bubble and left you and Jake shrugging at each other. There was only so much you could explain around here.

\---

You were on a rooftop with your feet dangling over the edge, looking through the list of applications on your phone before checking your chat client again. It would blink if you had a new message, but you couldn't help but open and close it over and over again in hopes that maybe you missed a message. You hadn't heard from Jake in a while.

You knew that he was probably just busy, but it was disheartening to wait and wait on him. It was hard to tell yourself that you weren't bothering him when every time he messaged you back you felt like you were an imposition.

When you were feeling lowest about yourself you heard a squelch from somewhere behind you, not a normal sound on top of a building. Next was muffled talking, the sound of two people speaking a ways away. Upon turning around you saw a familiar brain tree, not that you could tell if it was the same one from before, but it was hard not to recognize that particular type of foliage. It was probable that your weird scrawny alien guy from a while ago was around so you stood to go find him. Even if a weird unintelligible alien wasn't the best company at least it would get your mind off your phone for a while.

Maybe he'd be up for a fight, you could use a distraction. Instead of the singular brain tree last time it was a small grove and you had to step inside to follow the voices you heard. Before you saw him you could hear the slurred consonants and harsh stumbles between words, but there was another voice. You slowed down and moved silently until you could see movement from behind some kind of brain bush, you officially hated the landscape in this particular bubble.

“I mean I'm sorry you're so thick you couldn't even tell what Kankri was saying about you, I just thought maybe you might need someone to explain it to you and I got the time. If you're too thick to know that I'm trying to help you here then you're beyond saving.” 

You carefully peeked around one of the trees, being mindful not to touch it, and caught a glimpse of two of them shuffling around in a small clearing. The smaller yellow one was more familiar looking to you even if his helmet wasn't on his head, he had and unruly mop of hair that covered most of his face and swung a little when he moved. You didn't recognize the other troll with slicked back hair and a sleeveless undershirt, but you didn't have to know anything about him to know he was an asshole.

There was clearly something wrong with the smaller troll and the purple guy had his helmet wedged under one arm and was playing keep away with it. He had a grip on the yellow one's horns, holding him at bay without much effort and spouting something that sounded suspiciously like bullshit to your ears.

The smaller one mumbled something you didn't catch, stumbling and whiny, swinging an arm to try and dislodge the grip on his horns with little success.

“I'm doing you a fucking favor you deficient little shit, I'll give you your stupid helmet back when we're finished talking. Not that protecting your head will do you much good at this point anyways.” the purple one grumbled, shoving Little Yellow away and knocking him to the ground. Before his companion could gain his bearings and get back to his feet purple strode away and tossed the helmet up to a tall branch until it stuck up there, out of reach. 

“There, now can you quit fighting me for it for one fucking minute?” he walked back over and leaned over Little Yellow, hands on his hips.

“Cronuth you cumthucker prick.” he mumbled, sitting on the ground with no intent to get up.

“What are you going to do, tell Kurloz on me? You couldn't even remember in the time it would take to find him I bet.” Cronus swatted him across the head in a way that would have been affectionate if he hadn't hit him so hard.

“I could rememer nows.” Little Yellow punched him in the kneecap closest to him and brought him down to the ground. You managed to suppress the smile, but only just barely, that guy deserved a few more broken kneecaps but one would do for now. 

“Why you little shit! Mitty you're fucking double dead!” Cronus was on one knee, clutching the other.

Little Yellow had time for a short laugh before Cronus was swinging at him. His first swing missed and he nearly knocked himself flat on the ground, but it was enough to warn Yellow that he had to move before Cronus recovered any more. He scrambled in the other direction but couldn't get enough distance before Cronus got a hold of one of his ankles and dragged him back over. He swung his arms and tried to get out from under Cronus but before he could get anywhere Cronus got both hands wrapped around his neck.

The smaller one made a wet choking noise before the only sound was the quiet flailing of his limbs and Cronus's heavy breaths. It didn't seem like Cronus had to work very hard to choke the life out of another troll and that was intimidating. But even if you didn't know if ghosts could die over again you weren't about to sit here and watch this. And if that involved giving Cronus some dearly deserved punishment you were all about it.

You edged around the clearing silently, not that Cronus would have noticed you anyways, he was fully engaged in choking his buddy to death. You flash stepped up behind him and raised your sword, still sheathed. Even if he probably had it coming you didn't want to kill a ghost in cold blood like this, but a good thwack in the head would suffice to stop him hopefully. One of Little Yellow's flailing legs connected with your ankle just a second before you brought your sword down, throwing you off. You still connected directly with the side of his head, but it wasn't enough to knock him out like you'd intended, instead he fell of to the side with shriek, clutching his head.

You kicked him until he rolled away and stood between the two of them, tugging the sheath off your sword and pointing it at Cronus.

“Up, now. Go.” you made a gesture with your sword while Cronus looked up at you with slack jawed awe. You could hear Little Yellow coughing behind you but didn't turn to look, not wanting to take your eyes off the other one.

Cronus did stumble to his feet but not without a few choice words about meddling and sucker punches, 'why don't you fight me troll to troll', before slinking off into the trees. You watched until you couldn't hear him anymore before turning to check on the other one.

He was flat on his stomach, sprawled out and giving a weak occasional cough, but he looked pretty okay besides. You stabbed your sword into the ground and crouched next to him, leaning to try and get a look at his face but it was still covered with his curtain of hair.

“Fankth.” he monotoned, voice gruff.

“No problem, you good?” you reached out and patted the center of his back but it felt weird, his space suit was way too tight and left too little of his ass to the imagination.

“Air ith good.” he let his head fall to the side and even though you couldn't see his eyes he seemed to be able to see you.

“Got a name?” you sat on the ground, leaning one arm on the hilt of your sword.

“Uh, yesh?” he gestured limply with one arm but only managed to smash one hand into the ground. It looked painful but if it was he didn't show it. You'd never known anyone with legitimate brain damage before so you couldn't say for sure if that's what was wrong with him, but so far he was a good distraction.

“I'm Dirk. What's your name?” you offered, holding a hand out to him.

“Mituna. Have you theen my hamlet?” he grabbed your hand by the fingers and twined his with yours. Maybe a hand shake was the wrong way to go.

You ended up getting his helmet for him by poking it down with your sword and he sat up to put it on, inelegantly shoving it over his mop of hair and fitting his horns through it. You made to leave after a few minutes of unsuccessful conversation, you just couldn't understand most of what came out of his mouth, but he just followed you. To your surprise he actually made it out of the bubble area and followed you down into the building, you didn't know the ghosts could leave the dream bubble spaces.

“Hey I know you, the time you had your mouth all on that guy and I thaw.” he had your phone, which you did not remember giving him, and was flipping through pictures of you and Jake. He fumbled the phone and you caught it before it hit the floor. He was laughing and it just reminded you how you just fucked that relationship right up.

“Yeah well, not anymore, he won't talk to me.” you stuffed your phone into a pocket, trying not to sound bitter. His mouth fell slack and he stopped laughing like he forgot what was funny.

“Didjya fuck it up?” he leaned closer to you like he was asking a secret. Your first instinct was to sock him one, then yell, or lie. But really what good was any of that going to do, he was a random dead alien with very little brains, it wasn't even worth the effort.

“Pretty much.” even if it didn't feel good admitting that you fucked up it was good to be real about it.

“It'th okay.” he reached out and gently hit his palm against your cheek with a small 'pap'. He was smiling, fangs sticking out with little gray dimples in his cheeks and it was incredibly derpy but strangely charming. He lifted one finger and touched it flat to your lips.

“Shoosh, don't tell Kurloz, kay?” he leaned in closer and whispered like you had any idea what he was talking about.

“I won't tell anyone.” you indulged him and went to move away but he caught your face in both of his hands. Before you could pull out of his grip he planted a kiss on your lips. Just chaste and dry, you could feel his smooth teeth poking through his lips, but it was a cute gesture.

“Everybody maketh mithkateth. You will be okay.” he gave you another small pap on the cheek before letting go of you. Before the game you never had human contact, nothing besides your robots' cold hands. When you finally got Jake you didn't think you'd ever stop grabbing his hands or touching him, it was so nice just to have someone touching you, even just a passing touch. But Jake was always kind of ham handed, he always had to squeeze your hands in his or pull you closer. 

Mituna's touch was so light, strange from underneath his gloves, but gentle through and through. Even if you didn't know him hardly at all his touch told you more about him than he could tell you with words. It kind of baffled you how he could pretend to care about anything involving you when this was the first time you'd really met.

You opened your mouth to say something, the silence dragged on when nothing came out. You blinked and suddenly he was gone. It took you at least ten seconds to process the fact that he really was gone, you took your shades off and did a quick sweep of the room but you were alone. Before you had time to think on it more you found yourself running back to the roof to look for the brain trees but they were gone too, it was just an empty roof again.

Your heart sank when you surveyed the empty roof, feeling more despairing than you would like to admit. There was no way to know if you'd ever see him again, and no way to search him out, he was gone. You took a deep breath and sagged, alone again. Your phone vibrated in your pocket, startling you out of your depression before you fished it out. You had spent all day waiting for someone to message you on your phone, now that you had one it didn't make you feel any better.

**Author's Note:**

> Ack, I didn't really think about it until I finished writing it, but the premise of this one doesn't make too much sense. Can we just say it's an alternate timeline ghost Dirk who doesn't know he's dead? (does that cover it? oh noes OTL)
> 
> Anyways, this work was a request from Kira! :)


End file.
